In pretty much the same way it has helped cement Android's dominance in the smartphone world, Samsung helped Android blaze its way to the world's top tablet operating system last year, beating the once unquestioned champion Apple, which has ignited a worldwide tablet fever since its introduction of the iPad in 2010.

The latest figures released in early March by US-based research firm Gartner Inc showed that the South Korean tech giant sold 37.4 million tablets to end users globally in 2013, more than quadrupling the figure in 2012, catapulting the entire market share of Android tablets worldwide to 61.9 percent last year from the previous year's 45.8 percent.

In comparison, Apple's share of the global tablet market shrank to 36 percent in 2013 from 52.8 percent in 2012, although it started in late 2012 shipping the iPad mini featuring a smaller 7.9-inch screen to appeal to users on the go desiring ultra-portable gadgets.

The triumph over Apple in the tablet world has further lifted the morale of Android device vendors, a number of which have recently upped the stakes in the tablet battlefield by announcing an array of high-performance new products based on Google's latest Android platform.

The tablet market is also expected to see continued strong growth in markets outside North America, underpinning the rising spirits of tablet manufacturers.

Globally, the tablet market is predicted to grow 38.6 percent in 2014, spurred by fast-growing adoption in regions where market dynamics are driven by "the uptake of lower cost, smaller, non-branded tablets," Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner, said in a research note recently sent to the Global Times.

Hard hit by the rise of tablet market, global shipments of traditional PCs are expected to see a 6.6 percent decline in 2014 from the previous year.

Tablets will likely account for a half of the broad-based PC market that includes desktops, notebooks and tablets this year, according to the latest estimates from market researcher Canalys.

The Chinese marketplace for tablets will in particular be an area of growth compared to other markets where tablet adoption is on track to mature, Wang Jun, an industry analyst at Beijing-based market research firm Analysys International, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Growth in China's tablet market in terms of sales is forecast to be around 50-60 percent year-on-year in 2014, largely similar to last year, according to Wang, who believes the craze for tablets in the market won't cool down until 2016.

Worldwide, however, "tablet substitution of notebooks will start to dissipate from this year onwards," according to Gartner's Atwal.

Meanwhile, Wang of Analysys International, noted that Apple's iPads are likely to continue to hold clout in the Chinese market where users have a particular preference for the iPad products, although Apple may inevitably wither away in the tablet market in terms of market share.

Apple faces less pressure in China's tablet market than the nation's smartphone market, as telecom carriers, which have heavily engaged in the smartphone market by offering substantial subsidies, are barely involved in sales of tablets, the analyst added.

Intrinsyc MDP

Intrinsyc Software, a Vancouver-based mobile and embedded device developer, has recently revealed the availability of its Mobile Development Platform (MDP) tablet, which is considered the most powerful among its peers, uplifting overall limits on tablet technology.

Powered by Qualcomm's 32-bit quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor with speeds up to 2.7 gigahertz, one of the US mobile chipset maker's highest-performing mobile processors to date, the MDP tablet packs a 10.06-inch multi-touch WQHD display with a resolution of 2,560 by 1,440 pixels.

Coming in with 3 gigabytes of RAM and 64 gigabytes of high-speed storage as well as a microSD card slot for memory expansion, the new tablet will run on Google's latest Android 4.4 operating system, also known as KitKat.

It packs dual front 3D cameras in addition to a 13-megpixel main camera capable of ultra HD video capture in 4K, a high resolution video format. The tablet with a 3,400 mAh battery also features fingerprint scanner. Figures relating to the size and weight of the upcoming gadget are not yet known. The new tablet, available for purchase on its site, may more likely appeal to those dedicated tablet lovers taking into account its less enticing price tag. Shipping of the product will start late April, and Intrinsyc is currently taking orders.

HP Slate7 3G

Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), in its multi-year turnaround efforts to shift away from its mainstay PC business, has been following a bumpy road in the marketplace for mobile devices.

HP's former CEO Leo Apotheker decided in 2011 to completely ditch the company's cellphone, mobile platform and PC businesses, but his successor, the incumbent chief executive Meg Whitman, partly rolled back the decision after she arrived. But with the recent release of a slew of new tablet products, the US tech giant shows to be firmly continuing with integration into the mobile Internet era.

Scrambling to establish a foothold in the Chinese market, HP launched its voice-calling Slate7 3G tablet in partnership with China's leading e-commerce retailer jd.com in mid-March. The new dual-SIM tablet, powered by a 1.2-gigahertz quad-core CPU, runs on the Android 4.2 platform, also known as Jelly Bean.

It features a 7-inch IPS touch screen with a resolution of 1,280 by 800 pixels, weighing 325 grams with a body of 115 by 189 by 9.5 millimeters. The gadget also sports a rear camera of 5 megapixels and a front-facing camera of 2 megapixels. It comes in with a 4,100 mAh lithium-ion battery.

Onda V975i

While Android tablets are freshening the tablet market with ever-stronger hardware, computer chip giant Intel Corp is coming out swinging to ensure it is not left behind.

With the launch of energy-efficient Bay Trail-based Atom processors for tablets, Intel hopes to unleash a new wave of Intel inside tablets to reduce the importance of its rival such as ARM. In addition to those brand-name manufacturers, a number of white-box manufacturers that have been churning out tablets are being courted by Intel as well.

Guangzhou-based Onda, one of the white-box tablet makers, announced its newest devices packing the 64-bit quad-core Intel Atom Bay Trail-T processors last week.

The Onda V975i tablet appears to have quite a lot of muscle with a fairly affordable price tag.

Featuring a 9.7-inch retina display with a resolution of 2,048 by 1,536 pixels, the device weighs 495 grams with a thickness of 8.5 millimeters. The tablet, powered by the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean platform, has a 5-megapixel main camera and a 2-megapixel front camera. The lifes of its battery has yet to be revealed by Onda, who says the new tablet will soon hit the market.